I thought Mike Smith kept us in it early don't get me wrong.
And the Flames were flat as a board.
But there's something about this teams goaltending that screams slightly above average and hanging on by a thread.
If Smith is working that hard for the first half of the season we'll be lucky if he can hang on much longer mentally or physically is my concern.
I just rewatched the first period and I don't see where Mike Smith did anything of note. Markstrom made more "saves" than Smith. The Canucks took low percentage shots and Smith "stopped" the puck. The Flames also took a lot of low percentage shots, and Markstrom "stopped" those as well. The difference is the Flames had a few dangerous opportunities where they got Markstrom moving, and he still kept the puck out. When you get Smith moving he goes into his favorite yoga pose - downward flailing snow angel - and hopes you hit him with the puck. Not much control to his game.
Overall the Flames played the same perimeter game they played last year. The first two periods were carbon copies of the same tired garbage we watched last season. The bright spot is they changed things up in the third and Peters started to try and adapt. I think this is great. I also hope that Peters is quick to pick up on things that don't work. My observations:
If Austin Czarnik is going to be on the PP and handle the puck so much, he needs to learn to make the cross ice pass. There were way too many opportunities for him to hit the defenseman sneaking in on the off point, and he held the puck or tried to force a pass down low. If you can't make that pass through the seem, then you're not the guy to be on the half boards. Same can be said for Derek Ryan. I don't know what Peters sees in him, but he doesn't make crisp passes or try to get the defense moving.
The drop pass is embarrassing and needs to go. People are 100% right that the Canucks had an advantage in odd man opportunities, but its because the Flames first instinct is to move the puck backward and allow the defense to setup. This is never more evident than on the PP when the Flames begin the rush (usually Brodie) and get almost to the opposition blueline, then make the long drop pass to someone coming up with little to no speed. The Flames continually faced four blue jerseys lined up at the blueline and choked off the entrance to the zone. In the third they went to the dump and chase, but that resulted in just as many turnovers and retrieving the puck from their own zone. Flames need to focus on short crisp passes and getting the defenders to move, creating open ice to take advantage of. They haven't done this for a couple of years, so this is a bad habit they have to break quickly. Interestingly enough, the new guys seem to already be doing the same thing, so it may just be systemic.
The blueline needs to get on pucks quicker on the dump in and begin the transition with more urgency. The Flames love to retreive the puck and try and move it back against the flow, resulting in a lot of broken plays and turnovers. They need to get on the puck and use the momentum of the flow to their advantage and catch the opposition in transition. Still the biggest weakness of the team and again something that looks systemic in nature.
The lines looked like they had little chemistry going last night. The blender helped in the third, but the only line that really looked dangerous with any consistency was Gaudreau-Monahan-Neal. The others were not good with any consistency. I don't get Peters reliance on Ryan. My concern with him coming in was that it would take opportunity away from existing skill players. So far, Bennett and Jankowski have been subject to watching Ryan take a regular shift ahead of them, and I think that is tactical error. I'm still struggling to see the fit in some of the lines. A natural to me is Frolik-Backlund-Lindholm, as they all play the same style of game at the same speed. I think a great second line would be Bennett-Jankowski-Tkachuk, as they young guys seem to play the game at the same speed and with the same aggressive nature. I think they would feed off each other. What I hope to see next game are these lines.
Change needs to come quickly, or this is going to be another ugly season. This should have been an easy one out of the gate, but the Flames turned it into another loss. I hope they don't dig themselves another hole they have to try and get themselves out of.
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Honestly the Flames didn't look good last night but 5-on-5 they were still better than the canucks and by a fair amount. They had the bulk of quality chances but my god they couldn't hit the net to save their lives (there was one shift in the second I believe where they had 3 or 4 good chances right in a row and every shot missed the net). And when they did Markstrom was there for the save.
The game was one of two very sloppy teams. One of those teams managed to win both the special teams and goaltending battles.
Pettersson is still raw and he made some mistakes in terms of puck possession by forcing play in the neutral zone but wow he's a talent.
Also impressed by both Dube and Valimaki on the flames. I thought they had strong games and was confused that with a clearly struggling PP why Valimaki wasn't given a chance in the third. Interesting to see some good new blood on both teams.
Nothing inspired confidence that game. All of the same old crap. Flat energy, unable to take advantage of opportunities (PPs), opposing team holding momentum majority of game.
My expectations for the team completely plummeted since nothing change. I won't expect much from them this season until they prove otherwise. 'Good' on paper, and expecting them to work it out all season long when they continue to falter doesn't interest me.
Pretty much exactly my thoughts.
It's better this way, devoid of hope - it's somewhat less disappointing.
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The loss is annoying because its against a bad team and the Flames lost because of similar reasons to last year. However, its just one game. Lets breathe. Winnipeg lost two straight games last year getting demolished and blowing leads. They had a good year. Lets breathe. We will win Saturday. GFG!
I wonder how different the results would be if we had a heart.
No heart, little desire . 7 power plays and 6 shots.
Why is Hamonic ALONE trying to send a message?
The whole team should have been running Canuck especially when he's an easy target to take dumb penalties.
Our home opener better not be full of fancy pass attempts , river hockey and no heart.
I don't care if they play the trap and it's boring as hell let's win with heart, team effort . The give a fata meter is broken and the suicide booth is in the shop for repairs so we have to figure stuff out .
It's one game and I see a ton of potential in this team , I hope they see it in themselves and make an effort to erase this game from our minds.
One thing I did really appreciate about last night is that Peters changed up the zone entry on the PP when the big drop pass wasn’t working. The new entry was working.
Obviously it didn’t pay off but it shows he’s willing to make in game adjustments which was something I was so frustrated with the coaching staff last year.
Now the excuse will be the team is getting used to yet another new system and it takes time to gel............ etc. other teams get new coaches and can play well from the beginning but the flames need a full season to get used to the system. its only 1 game but it looks exactly the same as last years mentally weak team.
I thought that Boomer and Rhett summed up our collective frustration pretty well this morning. That loss was so frustrating because it didn't look like Game 1 of the 2018/2019 season it looked like game 83 of the 2017/2018 season.
Most of us bought into the story that this team was going to be so different. Then they looked like the exact same team (especially the brutal power play) that looked so bad at the end of last season.
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Last edited by Racki; 10-04-2018 at 07:45 AM.
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One thing I did really appreciate about last night is that Peters changed up the zone entry on the PP when the big drop pass wasn’t working. The new entry was working.
Obviously it didn’t pay off but it shows he’s willing to make in game adjustments which was something I was so frustrated with the coaching staff last year.
Agreed. That plus juggling up the line combos and throwing out Monny and Johnny out there as much as possible
One more thing. Did we pay James Neal $5,750,000 to play with a rookie left winger and a european league journeyman centre. Get the guy up their with the Monahan or Backlund line.
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Uhh, yeah. I don't care how many chances or corsis you get. If you give up five goals even strength, you were awful 5 on 5.
I think what I was driving at was that neither team was good defensively last night. At all. It was a coaches nightmare on both sides. However, I think the flames did out chance the canucks 5-on-5 by a fair margin. Markstrom stood tall with several big saves, Smith had none. Flames couldn't hit a net.
It was a 5-2 in for the canucks and I honestly think only a small handful of players between both teams can actually be satisfied with how they played. It was entertaining but games like that from both teams are going to get them slaughtered by most of the league. I have greater confidence that the flames can put things together more than the canucks moving forward. Nothing is going to change the fact that Gudbranson, Pouliot, and Del Zotto are just really, really bad pretty much all the time.
One more thing. Did we pay James Neal $5,750,000 to play with a rookie left winger and a european league journeyman centre. Get the guy up their with the Monahan or Backlund line.
I just rewatched the first period and I don't see where Mike Smith did anything of note. Markstrom made more "saves" than Smith. The Canucks took low percentage shots and Smith "stopped" the puck. The Flames also took a lot of low percentage shots, and Markstrom "stopped" those as well. The difference is the Flames had a few dangerous opportunities where they got Markstrom moving, and he still kept the puck out. When you get Smith moving he goes into his favorite yoga pose - downward flailing snow angel - and hopes you hit him with the puck. Not much control to his game.
Overall the Flames played the same perimeter game they played last year. The first two periods were carbon copies of the same tired garbage we watched last season. The bright spot is they changed things up in the third and Peters started to try and adapt. I think this is great. I also hope that Peters is quick to pick up on things that don't work. My observations:
If Austin Czarnik is going to be on the PP and handle the puck so much, he needs to learn to make the cross ice pass. There were way too many opportunities for him to hit the defenseman sneaking in on the off point, and he held the puck or tried to force a pass down low. If you can't make that pass through the seem, then you're not the guy to be on the half boards. Same can be said for Derek Ryan. I don't know what Peters sees in him, but he doesn't make crisp passes or try to get the defense moving.
The drop pass is embarrassing and needs to go. People are 100% right that the Canucks had an advantage in odd man opportunities, but its because the Flames first instinct is to move the puck backward and allow the defense to setup. This is never more evident than on the PP when the Flames begin the rush (usually Brodie) and get almost to the opposition blueline, then make the long drop pass to someone coming up with little to no speed. The Flames continually faced four blue jerseys lined up at the blueline and choked off the entrance to the zone. In the third they went to the dump and chase, but that resulted in just as many turnovers and retrieving the puck from their own zone. Flames need to focus on short crisp passes and getting the defenders to move, creating open ice to take advantage of. They haven't done this for a couple of years, so this is a bad habit they have to break quickly. Interestingly enough, the new guys seem to already be doing the same thing, so it may just be systemic.
The blueline needs to get on pucks quicker on the dump in and begin the transition with more urgency. The Flames love to retreive the puck and try and move it back against the flow, resulting in a lot of broken plays and turnovers. They need to get on the puck and use the momentum of the flow to their advantage and catch the opposition in transition. Still the biggest weakness of the team and again something that looks systemic in nature.
The lines looked like they had little chemistry going last night. The blender helped in the third, but the only line that really looked dangerous with any consistency was Gaudreau-Monahan-Neal. The others were not good with any consistency. I don't get Peters reliance on Ryan. My concern with him coming in was that it would take opportunity away from existing skill players. So far, Bennett and Jankowski have been subject to watching Ryan take a regular shift ahead of them, and I think that is tactical error. I'm still struggling to see the fit in some of the lines. A natural to me is Frolik-Backlund-Lindholm, as they all play the same style of game at the same speed. I think a great second line would be Bennett-Jankowski-Tkachuk, as they young guys seem to play the game at the same speed and with the same aggressive nature. I think they would feed off each other. What I hope to see next game are these lines.
Change needs to come quickly, or this is going to be another ugly season. This should have been an easy one out of the gate, but the Flames turned it into another loss. I hope they don't dig themselves another hole they have to try and get themselves out of.
I do agree that the D need to get back quicker but all of them coast back while waiting for Smith to play the puck. Smith becomes the third D and the D stop and expect him to pass the puck to them or the forwards.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flameester
I do agree that the D need to get back quicker but all of them coast back while waiting for Smith to play the puck. Smith becomes the third D and the D stop and expect him to pass the puck to them or the forwards.
The forwards were brutal at getting back quickly last night...actually the entire team was a tirefire defensively at times and Smith was no good when needed ether.
I didn't watch the whole game but the powerplays I saw didn't look that bad. They were pressing and had chances just shot wide. I'm not going to write them off just yet (maybe I'll wait until after game 2 of the season).
I have to say, after a long competitive training camp and preseason which included a trip to China. After having to get used to 7 new starters and a new coaching staff and wait through another opening ceremony....some of you guys have the PGT after a loss dialed friggin' in...midsea..no playoff form. Kudos
__________________ This Signature line was dated so I changed it.
Now the excuse will be the team is getting used to yet another new system and it takes time to gel............ etc. other teams get new coaches and can play well from the beginning but the flames need a full season to get used to the system. its only 1 game but it looks exactly the same as last years mentally weak team.
Well, not exactly, no. I think it was Darren Haynes who had a piece last year where he showed that it takes on average about 15–20 games for a team with a new coach to get their feet under them.
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"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
